The present invention relates to gas meters. In particular, the present invention relates to a device and process for installing an encoder receiver transmitter (ERT) onto a gas meter so that the gas meter can be read remotely.
Historically, gas meters were equipped with a readout dial to enable a utility employee to record gas usage for billing purposes. In order read the meter, the employee would have to look directly at the meter to read the dial. This process would be repeated at each home or business, a time-consuming task.
In recent years, encoder receiver transmitters (ERT) have been developed to transmit a signal related to the gas usage to a remote receiver. The utility employee can simply drive past the building in a vehicle and receive the transmitted usage data without ever leaving the vehicle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,252 to Johnson et al. describe a communications protocol for transmitting usage data from a gas meter.
The ERT mounts to the holes in the outer casing of the meter and interfaces to the meter""s drive mechanism. The drive mechanism of the meter is a gear that translates the measured volumes of gas into rotations. Prior to ERT installation, the drive mechanism rotated the readout dial to display gas usage; however, the ERT has an input gear that meshes with the drive mechanism gear to tally the number of rotations. By the term mesh, it is meant that the teeth of the gears are engaged. If the ERT is correctly installed, reading meters is greatly simplified and the number of meters that can be read in a given period of time significantly increased. If the ERT is incorrectly installed, however, the meter will seize or break, thereby requiring replacement of the meter. Meter replacement is not only costly for the utility company, but also causes an inconvenience to the customer by the outage.
Since the installation of the ERT does not interfere with the gas stream supplied to a customer, the gas meter gear continues to rotate during installation. As a result, the gears of the drive mechanism and input gear may fail to mesh properly and the teeth between the gears become misaligned and jammed. As a result, parts internal to the meter break or seize, thereby requiring replacement of the meter. Therefore, there is a need for a process and device for installing an ERT that will prevent misalignment of the drive mechanism and input gear.
According to its major aspects and broadly stated, the present invention is a process and device for installing an encoder receiver transmitter (ERT) onto a gas meter. In particular, the present invention is guide bracket having a slot for guiding an input gear of an ERT to mesh with a drive mechanism of a gas meter. During installation, the customary index and lens are removed so that the drive mechanism is exposed. Then, the guide bracket is attached to the meter using positioning fasteners through the mounting holes in guide bracket and into the index holes in meter. Once the guide bracket is secured, a screw is loosely threaded into the upper-right installation hole in the ERT and through the upper-right casing hole in the meter so that the ERT pivots about this point. Next, the ERT is rotated so that the movement of the input gear is guided by the slot in the guide bracket. Finally, the ERT is allowed to rotated until all casing holes align with the installation holes in the meter and the ERT can be secured to the meter. As this point, the teeth of input gear have meshed with the teeth of drive mechanism.
A major advantage of the present invention is the ability to prevent incorrect installation of the ERT. With the guide bracket having a slot guiding the movement of the input gear, the teeth of the input gear and drive mechanism will inevitable mesh correctly so that the drive mechanism will not fail or cause any internal parts to fail.
The elimination or even the reduction of repair costs for incorrectly installed ERTs is an important advantage of the present invention. The utility company will not only reduce the inconvenience of having to replace gas meters, but will also reduce the cost of and time involved in replacing meters.
Having the input gear follow a curved slot in order to mesh with the drive mechanism gear is an important feature of the present invention. With the curvature of the slot guiding the movement of the input gear, the gears will not be forced together incorrectly. As a result, the teeth of the input gear and the drive mechanism will not be misaligned and jam but will properly mesh.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from a careful reading of the Detailed Description of a Preferred Embodiment presented below and accompanied by the drawings.